15 Reasons Why My Childhood was the Best

15 Reasons Why My Childhood was the Best.

I grew up as an adopted farm kid in the late 1970s and 1980s. As a tom-boy girl, there’s just nothing like the 1980s. I mean there is just so much material for reminiscing; the awesome music, the fashion, the movies. I was born in the bag phone era. Yes, I thought I was on top of the world with a bag phone when I was in high school. O man, the good ‘ol days before Google and YouTube.

My parents’ job was dressing, feeding, sheltering, educating and loving us all. I am sure that they didn’t put a heck of a lot of more thought into their parenting then that. They didn’t read books to learn how to be a parent. They stressed about the crops in the ground and putting food on their table not about whether allowing us all to cry it out would scar them for eternity. My parents would say, “Quit your crying, dust yourself off and put a smile on your face.” I mean it was rough. No, what I mean is that they made me tough. I’m not am ashamed of that at all.

Yes, the late 1970s and 1980s were a goldmine of dreams, and undoubtedly the best decade for a child to grow up in. EVER. In my opinion.

In honor of my of my birth-day-month, 15 Reasons Why My Childhood Was the Best:

1.We Roamed.

Yes, just like a herd of cattle. We ran around; most of the time with no shoes on. We played in the trees and in the dump yards. We rode our horses to grandmas and to our friends. We were Wild. We were explorers. We would be gone for hours without mom or dad knowing where we were.

2.We had Books.

You read that’s right. We read a lot of books. On that note, the tween literature was awesome. The Babysitters Club, Sweet Valley Twins, the aforementioned American Girl series, prior to becoming befouled by consumerism and smart phones.

3.We had no handheld electronic devices.

That’s right, I actually cannot believe how fast the electronic devices have taken over our world. These kids these days are growing up with their hands on a device and their minds running over. Back in my day, we had to memorize phone numbers of our friends and neighbors, we played with them and we chatted face-to-face. The closest thing to electronic was the big computers at the school, we thought were so cool because we could play the Oregon Trail game on them. In high school, it was so cool to have a CD player with ear phones. I mean I jammed out to Chris LeDoux and Garth Brooks everyday. Remember that? I am thankful for all those years. I mean, really I grew up with a party line. That means that when the neighbor lady, was on the phone, we couldn’t make a call out. We actually spent time with friends and family without constantly looking down at a screen while pretending to listen.

4.We had photo albums.

Oh yes, and I still love them. You know how cool it is to flip through photos in books? By the way, I still make photo albums because I want my kids to be able to look thru them long after I am gone.

5.We didn’t have fear marketing.

What I mean is, we ate what we wanted and didn’t have labels that would market fear for their own adjenda. There were no GMO’s, organics, natural, etc. talk, we just ate what we wanted. Oh wait, have I told you that I dislike fear marketing.

6.We knew where are food came from.

Yep, I grew up on a farm/ranch. We had animals and crops. We all know that it takes hard working farmers and ranchers to provide food for all of us. Dad would butcher our beef and all of us would package it together. It was like a science lab over and over.

7.We had quite the trends going on.

I mean, the hairstyles and the clothes. Let me tell you, we were hot. I decided not to share my hair do’s!!

8.We are the Xennials and proud of it.

What is Xennials? We are the generation born between 1982 and 2004, millennials are aged between 13 and 35. The generation before, Gen X, spanned another 20 years, beginning in 1961 and ending in 1981. Enter Xennials, the term being used to describe people born between 1977 and 1983. Like the pessimistic Gen Xers before us, my microgeneration is not as tech savvy as the millennials who are considered digital natives.We had to learned to consume media and came of age before there was Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where we still watched the evening news or read the monthly newspaper.

9.We couldn’t have everything that we wanted. Not everything was obtainable. We didn’t have Amazon or Ebay, so if it was sold out at the local Kmart, then it was out.

10.We were disciplined. Yes, I got a lot of spankings and so did my siblings. We all lived. It didn’t scar us. Those spankings that I got, made me a better person today. 

11.We rode in the back of pickups.

No I mean in the way back. We didn’t have all these car seat rules so we sat in the back more than we sat in the front.

12.We earned our spot.

I am talking about everything that we did. Volleyball, Basketball, FFA, Rodeo everything that we did. We had to work our butts off in practice if we didn’t want to sit the bench. Our parents stayed out of it. It was pretty black and white. If you didn’t work hard then that is exactly where it got you.

13.We never locked our doors.

Our school doors were not locked, we never locked our vehicles, and we never, never thought a second about it.

14.We may or may not have had a gun(s) in our vehicles.

EVERYDAY!! End of story. Except we knew how to use them.

15.We had to be punctual.

If we wanted to meet up on the hill at 6 pm, then that is just what we did. We couldn’t call and change it.

It is a wonder any of us from Xennials are alive to tell our stories. And yet, here I am, alive and well at 39, writing about my childhood. We had a good life.

What did I miss? Are you a Xennial?